Mount Vernon and George

Today was a very interesting day.  About 50 of us Carroll Lutheran Village folks took a Rill's Company bus to George Washington's home at Mount Vernon, Virginia.  The rain held off until 5 pm, so we had nice weather


And guess what?  The wheel chair lift worked!  I think I have mentioned the problem we had in Philadelphia with the same bus.  We froze our fingers working on the lift for two hours until somebody figured out how to work it manually with a pair of pliers.


Also, last week, on an Eyre's Bus to the Maryland State Archives in Annapolis, the lift did not go either up or down.  Elaine was first stuck for a while in limbo, until it suddenly worked. Later, it wouldn't work again, and we had to wait for an Eyre's mechanic to drive down from Baltimore to figure out how to get it to work. He never did figure it out, but he did finally get it to go up and at our destination, to go down.  Nobody knew why.  At least Elaine didn't have to sleep on the bus.


Today, our only bus problem was the narrow seats where one had to suffer painful "cheek separation."  Of course, this could be fixed by diet.


At Mount Vernon, we encountered 85,936 children in yellow t-shirts.  The shirts each had a long-winded message emblazoned on it's back, that, in effect, outlined a police initiative in the District of Columbia. Plain-clothed (in yellow t-shirts) policemen shepherd underprivileged kids to historical points of interest in the DC area.  The operation under which the cops do their fine work is called "Seminole."  (I couldn't find anything about it on Google.)


This reminds me of the program in our Carroll County (Maryland) called "Shop With A Cop," where local policemen go with kids to buy them gifts for Christmas. Sargeant Keith Benfer, of the Westminster Police Department, is the main worker on this very noble activity.  Keith is a loyal member of our local TRIAD/SALT effort in Carroll County.


I pushed Elaine (uphill) to the Mansion House at Mount Vernon, and we took a look at George Washington's first floor.  The second floor was not handicapped accessible.  Instead, a docent gave us a book with pictures of the second floor rooms and we sat on George's front porch and looked at it, and at the beautiful view of the Potomac River.  The river looks nice and clean now, but I've read that it and the Anacostia River were once quite polluted with DC waste of all kinds.


We also  looked in on the slave quarters.  Elaine was worried about where female slaves relieved themselves, not seeing any porcelain equipment in the vicinity.


The area abounds with gigantic trees: elm, magnolia, oak, etc.  One tree was so fat, it must have been a good size when George was a boy.  Of course, we could not see any cherry trees, because little George chopped them all down, or so Parson Weems told us.  I'm planning to manage a discussion group session on TRUTH later in the Summer, and I will make sure we talk about little George's honesty.


Our group ate a very nice lunch at the Mount Vernon Inn, right there at the mansion site.  Nice ham slices, with skinny string beans, salad and mashed potatoes..  and, of course, a nice slice of cherry pie.


After lunch, we had 2 (count-em 2) hours to spend in either the souvenir shops or the on-site museums.  Elaine chose "shop",  I chose "museum".. although I did buy 5 books later.  The museums outlined George's life..  his early occupation, his military campaigns and his political life.  And.. naturally... his TEETH.  Not wood, by the way..  we've been lied to.  Poor George, his teeth were bad  all of his life and kept falling out, so that he had to write to England to get  some false ones made out of animal bone and plaster.. hinged on the sides by wire like that used by the Tin Man in OZ.


When he was inaugurated as our first President, George took the oath while trying to hide his last remaining tooth.  Mr. President, I know the feeling.  I had massive teeth problems in high school that required some false ones to secretly replace bad ones, so that my fellow high-school friends did not notice. 


This is probably much more than you would care to know about our trip to our Nation's capitol... except..


Yesterday, the Washington Monument was opened again, after needed repairs because of our bad weather.  As we drove along the river, we got a great view of the monument.. as well as a marvelous view of the Lincoln Memorial.  Helicopters and jet aircraft were flying through our vista... I thought that air planes were not supposed to fly over DC.


Enough!